When you’re struck by winter weather, you may be tempted to put snowflakes and other icy-cold art atop your front page.
I can’t tell you not to do that: I’ve done it a time or two myself. It’s trite, but it can work. Sometimes.
It’s winter in the southern hemisphere. It’s very, very cold in South Africa this weekend. My friends at the Johannesburg-based, national Sunday paper, City Press, had the bright idea to put snowflakes atop page one today.
The snowflakes were deliberate. The little Mickey Mouse ears embedded in them, I suspect, were not.
It took me only a second or two to retrace the designer’s steps via Google to find the likely source:
Mining Google for art can be risky. You never know exactly what you might be getting. This example is merely amusing. The one we looked at yesterday, however, might have gotten someone fired.
It’s much better to either a) Use a trusted source for stock art. Or b) Draw your own.
